Why Must Things Go Bump in the Night?

Has it ever touched upon your heart, the question asked by every soul who walks upon this globe? Why must we hurt? How is it that the heart can feel such longing over the loss of what never existed? Can the body survive such deep cavities of brokenness? Why do we open the closet and set free the monsters that lurk in the most haunted parts of our heart? Would ever the body have time to heal if it were not for the leeching parasites of heartache that drain away our life blood? Why must we drink that poison and endure the burning torture of our darkest pain? Why must we hurt? Why must we allow the hurt to linger? Why is it so hard some days to find the sun? Why must things always go bump in the night?

"Perhaps the Unknown haunts you."

Sometimes it seems the spirit was not equipped to bear such heavy pain. In life with all its bag of assortments, hurt is sometimes retched upon you. Perhaps it is the music of a lonely soul…perhaps the Unknown haunts you....perhaps it is the maze of life and you crumple in weary despair not knowing where to go. Or perhaps fallen upon you to bear, with all its hollow feelings and shadow memories, is the quiescent spirit of adoration. So eager to love, so hungry to move forward that you trip and stumble, trying to coerce the chess pieces of life to move on. And it is in this folly that we fall prey to games which cheat us of our wisdom. We tangle our feelings within what we perceive as fate. Then choked by confusion when feelings vanish, we are left within a matrix of thorns. Only then do we realize the error of our callow spirit. Drops of blood trickle down our heart as we must extract ourselves from the mess. If only we could draw back the steps we took into sanguinary realms of heartache and disgraced valor… why must we learn the most painful lessons only by our own hand of mistake? Why do we strike the albatross and feel the dismal recoil of peace in our lives? Why must our hearts touch upon the blackest troughs of human despair in order to find the paths to the highest summit of heavenly splendor?

And then one day, our tired and bedraggled souls finally stand to attention and we shed the chaff of self-pity, acquiescing to the inclusion of pain in our lives. We see it not anymore as an apocalyptic Rubicon; overwhelming devastation that cripples us in paralyzing remorse. No, we feel the power of pain, but no longer chose to walk down the dark halls of poisoned nightmares.  We no longer wander into barren regions of doubt where half-truths and hollow hopes cheat the soul of life. We move on. We move on because we have learned the symbiotic bond between joy and despair. We realize that without stumbling we’d fail to learn how to pick ourselves up. Without the death of our child trust, we’d walk through the perils of this life vulnerable, unprotected. How might we treasure the warmth of the sun when we’ve never felt the sting of cold? A diamond sparkles its deepest once the rock has been cut away; gold shines its truest once it’s been refined…

And just as the loaf which Jesus broke in pieces fed not just one man, but a multitude, so can our lives be more nourishing to others when we ourselves have been broken. I suppose that is why we walk through this fallen world, so we might learn the power it takes to live. That we might not crumble in the first hour of battle nor surrender our souls to the curse of the unlived life.  We hurt so might shine bright as stars. It rains so we might remember the sun. We battle today so we might be strong enough to battle what comes tomorrow. And when it seems as though we cannot take one more step forward, we realize that we must. We must move on, we must stand strong, we must persist in what fights to drag us down. And in this, our spirits become noble and our might becomes courageous; and we learn that we are no longer weak, but powerful. And in the end, when it is all said and done, and we see how far we’ve come, we shall smile and realize that if things didn’t go bump in the night we’d never learn how to truly become alive.